TW: Panic Attack, Dementia
SYNOPSIS
Tengo Famiglia. Literally “I support a family” but for Nick’s Italian immigrant grandparents it means “I have a reason for being alive.” The four grandparents and Nick are the only part of the family left in New Jersey and Nick’s time has come to leave. His grandparents don’t take it well and decide to set him up with a girl to give him a reason not to take the job on the West Coast. Nick likes her but reacts badly to being set up which Caitlin doesn’t appreciate. After blowing up at his interfering grandparents, Nick has a panic attack and spends two weeks on their couch recovering. For 29 years they’ve all had dinner together every Sunday, but it’s only in these two weeks that Nick really starts to see his grandparents for who they are. They all cherish each other and both sides reluctantly agree that Nick should follow his aspirations. Grandpa Nunzio knew Nick would stay if he told him that he was sick, but he chose not to hold Nicky back. Shortly after Nick takes the job, he returns to Jersey for Nunzio’s funeral, but in having gone he’s found himself. His grandparents pass one after the other, but Nick finds peace within his new family, having married and now expecting their first child.
CHARACTERS
Frank – Elderly Italian Immigrant
Nick – Italian-American, Young Adult
Aida – Elderly Italian Immigrant
Caitlin – Irish-American, Young Adult
Nunzio – Elderly Italian Immigrant
Emma - Elderly Italian Immigrant
POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES
The play opens with two shorts monologues, the better stand alone one is Frank’s. He talks about leaving Italy and the meaning I behind Tengo Famiglia. It could easily be combined with his next line about how hard his first six weeks were. Frank has another later in the scene about how hard he had to work to get his 1941 DeSoto and how buying that car made him confident that he could make a life for himself in America. Then he has a big, long monologue about his childhood in Italy and discovering just how poor his family was. It was only when Frank returned with his then new wife to buy all the toys he wanted when he was a child that his mother revealed that his father sent him away so that he could afford all the things his parents couldn’t give him.
Nicky’s first monologue that isn’t setting the scene is him chewing out his grandparents for suffocating him, but it ends with him collapsing from a panic attack so it’ll need a bit a zhushing to pull off. His last monologue that closes the show is beautiful to me. He thanks his grandparents for all their hard work and that they elevated him to place so far removed from their own lives that it became difficult to relate to each other, but that they never stopped trying.
Emma also has a nice monologue about the difference between what a good life meant when she was Nicky’s age versus all the expectations he’s under now.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
I just adore this play. There’s something about immigrant stories that warms my heart, especially when they can keep their culture alive while navigating America’s amalgamation. There’s so much love in this play and that’s where the conflict lies. To love your people and where you come from so much that it hurts to move on no matter how good the opportunity that lies ahead. The way Nicky’s grandparents try so hard to understand him and that as much as he argues with him, he struggles with the idea of not being close enough to see them every week, is very touching.
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